Birds of Prey looks set to be a success for Warner Bros. and the DC Extended Universe. Critics and audiences so far appear to love it, with the film sitting comfortably at an 84 percent among critics (88 percent among audiences) on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing. Harley Quinn's "Fantabulous Emancipation" is also set to make a decent profit for Warner Bros., with some estimating the film will open to between $110-120 million worldwide. Like Shazam!, the movie had a lower budget, meaning Birds of Prey doesn't need to gross a ton in order to succeed.

But while most people seem to regard the film as a success, others are heralding the Birds of Prey as a failure for not bringing in weekend numbers similar to Joker. In fact, some seem to be deriding Birds of Prey as a "failure" with glee, with multiple articles deriding the film's box office projections. Here's why some are so eager to see Birds of Prey fail.

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Birds of Prey is NOT "Dead in the Water"

Some sites have taken the film's projections and Thursday preview numbers and framed them as colossal failures. One headline framed Birds of Prey's Thursday preview numbers as "tanking," despite the movie bringing in at least $4 million, and another article posted on the same site refers to Birds of Prey as "Dead in the Water." A different website argued the film "could be in trouble" due to low early ticket sales, and linked images of theaters full of available seats.

These takes misconstrue Thursday night sales as reflective of the entire weekend. Birds of Prey is still on track to make a sizable profit, even at the lower end of estimations. Some are taking pride in making it appear as if the film is doing poorly so as to receive validation for doubting the movie's success when early estimations were initially announced. However, there's still the question as to why they're doing that in the first place.

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Birds of Prey vs. The Culture War

Birds of Prey might not bring in as much as, say, an offering from the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a number of reasons. Birds of Prey is an R-rated film releasing in February, a month that often isn't as big for movies as the summer or holiday seasons. The marketing campaign for Birds of Prey was also far more subdued than for other DC superhero films, such as Joker.

There are also legitimate reasons fans who loved the comics might be upset with the film. Birds of Prey makes a fair number of changes to the source material. While in the movie Harley Quinn is the central character, Oracle founds the Birds of Prey in in the comics. Cassandra Cain is also vastly different than her comic book counterpart.

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However, there are those who believe Birds of Prey will fail because they see the film as trying to appeal to the "wrong" audience. This doesn't really add up. There's an argument going around Birds of Prey made a mistake by targeting women, who supposedly only want to watch romantic comedies in February. However, Birds of Prey's target audience is female fans who either love the comics or want to see women as heroes. What other demographic should the film appeal to?

This narrative ties into a broader discussion throughout pop culture: films that prioritize women as a target demographic often draw the ire of some fans. This was quite obvious last year with Captain Marvel. Before that, the female-lead reboot of Ghostbusters, was deemed as a failure long before it even came out. Even before that, a subset of fans raged against Mad Max: Fury Road for "emasculating" Max and prioritizing the now-iconic character Furiosa over him.

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The quality or success of these films is mostly irrelevant, since this negative response begins following trailers or even the announcements of the films, not their quality upon release. Like clockwork, every genre film that features female leads is derided by a certain subset of fans. When people say Birds of Prey and movies like it are targeting the "wrong audience," they really mean women.

The Unapologetic Theme of Female Friendship

This trend of misogynist anger was true for all the previously mentioned films. Birds of Prey, however, has the added benefit of featuring a cast and creative team primarily made up of women. It is directed by Cathy Yan, written by Christina Hodson, produced by Margot Robbie, is based on a comic series defined by Gail Simone and features a predominantly female main cast, which includes women of color. Plus, the film is unapologetic in its feminist themes, more overtly than even Captain Marvel.

Because of this, Birds of Prey, like so many films before it, has become a battleground for the culture war that has raged online for years. There exists a particular, vocal group of fans who believe all films need to be directly catered to their desires, and any one dares that to target a different demographic is inherently bad. While there are many ways this subset of fans can rationalize their hatred toward the film, it ultimately boils down to this: Birds of Prey is a film that celebrates female friendship, which upsets men who hate women.

Directed by Cathy Yan from a script by Christina Hodson, Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) stars Margot Robbie, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rosie Perez, Ewan McGregor, Ella Jay Basco, Steven Williams, Derek Wilson, Dana Lee, Francois Chau, Charlene Amoia, Chris Messina and Matthew Willig. The film is in theaters now.

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